woman without the man in the Lord," he taught also that the male alone
is in the image of God. "For a man ought not to have his head veiled
forasmuch as he is the image of God; but the woman is the glory of
man." Thus he carried the spirit of the Talmud, "aggravated and
re-enforced," into Christianity, represented by the following appointed
daily prayer for pious Jews: "Blessed art thou, O Lord, that thou hast
not made me a Gentile, an idiot nor a woman." Paul exhibits fairness in
giving reasons for his peremptory mandate. "For Adam was first formed,
then Eve," he says. This appears to be a weak statement for the higher
position of man. If male man is first in station and authority, is
superior because of priority of formation, what is his relation to
"whales and every living creature that moveth which the waters bring
forth, and every winged fowl after his kind," which were formed before
him?
And again, "Adam was not beguiled, but, the woman being beguiled, hath
fallen into transgression." There was then already existing the
beguiling agency. The transgression of Eve was in listening to this
existing source of error, which, in the allegory, is styled "the most
subtle beast of the field which the Lord God hath made." Woman did not
bring this subtle agency into activity. She was not therefore the
author of sin, as has been charged. She was tempted by her desire for
the knowledge which would enable her to distinguish between good and
evil. According to this story, woman led the race out of the ignorance
of innocence into the truth. Calvin, the commentator, says: "Adam did
not fall into error, but was overcome by the allurements of his wife."
It is singular that the man, who was "first formed," and therefore
superior, and to whom only God has committed the office of teaching,
not only was not susceptible to the temptation to acquire knowledge,
but should have been the weak creature who was "overcome by the
allurements of his wife."
But the story of the fall and all cognate myths and parables are far
older and more universal than the ordinary reader of the Bible supposes
them to be. The Bible itself in its Hebrew form is a comparatively
recent compilation and adaptation of mysteries, the chief scenes of
which were sculptured on temple walls and written or painted on papyri,
ages before the time of Moses. History tells us, moreover, that the
Book of Genesis, as it now stands, is the work not even of Moses, but
of Ezra or Esdras, who lived at the time of the captivity, between five
hundred and six hundred years before our era, and that he recovered it
and other writings by the process of intuitional memory. "My heart," he
says, "uttered understanding, and wisdom grew in my breast; for the
spirit strengthened my memory."
With regard to the particular myth of the fall, the walls of ancient
Thebes, Elphantine, Edfou and Karnak bear evidence that long before
Moses taught, and certainly ages before Esdras wrote, its acts and
symbols were embodied in the religious ceremonials of the people, of
whom, according to Manetho, Moses was himself a priest. And the whole
history of the fall of man is, says Sharpe, in a work on Egypt, "of
Egyptian origin. The temptation of the woman by the serpent, the man by
the woman, the sacred tree of knowledge, the cherubs guarding with
flaming swords the door of the garden, the warfare declared between the
woman and the serpent, may all be seen upon the Egyptian sculptured
monuments."
This symbology signifies a deeper meaning than a material garden, a
material apple, a tree and a snake. It is the relation of the soul or
feminine part of man, "his living mother," to the physical and external
man of sense. The temptation of woman brought the soul into the
limitations of matter, of the physical. The soul derives its life from
spirit, the eternal substance, God. Knowledge, through intellect alone,
is of the limitation of flesh and sense. Intuition, the feminine part
of reason, is the higher light. If the soul, the feminine part of man,
is turned toward God, humanity is saved from the dissipations and the
perversions of sensuality. Humanity is not alone dual in the two forms,
male and female, but every soul is dual. The more perfect the balance
in the individual of masculine and feminine, the more perfect the man
or the woman. The masculine represents force, the feminine love. "Force
without love can but work evil until it is spent."
Paul evidently was not learned in Egyptian lore. He did not recognize
the esoteric meaning of the parable of the fall. To him it was a
literal fact, apparently, and Eve was to be to all womankind the
transmitter of a "curse" in maternity. We know that down to the very
recent date of the introduction of anesthetics the idea prevailed that
travail pains are the result of, and punishment for, the transgression
of Mother Eve. It was claimed that it was wrong to attempt to remove
"the curse" from woman, by mitigating her suffering in that hour of
peril and of agony.
Whatever Paul may mean, it is a fact that the women of our aboriginal
tribes, whose living was natural and healthful, who were not enervated
by civilized customs, were not subject to the sufferings of civilized
women. And it has been proven by the civilized woman that a strict
observance of hygienic conditions of dress, of diet, and the mode of
life, reduces the pangs of parturition. Painless child-bearing is a
physiological problem; and "the curse" has never borne upon the woman
whose life had been in strict accord with the laws of life. Science has
come to the rescue of humanity, in the recognition of the truth, that
the advancement as well as the conservation of the race is through the
female. The great Apostle left no evidence that he apprehended this
fact. His audacity was sublime; but it was the audacity of ignorance.
No more stupendous demonstration of the power of thought can be
imagined, than is illustrated in the customs of the Church for
centuries, when in the general canons were found that "No woman may
approach the altar," "A woman may not baptize without extreme
necessity," "Woman may not receive the eucharist under a black veil."
Under canon 81 she was forbidden to write in her own name to lay
Christians, but only in the name of her husband; and women were not to
receive letters of friendship from any one addressed to themselves.
Canon law, framed by the priesthood, compiled as early as the ninth
century, has come down in effect to the nineteenth, making woman
subordinate in civil law. Under canon law, wives were deprived of the
control of both person and property. Canon law created marriage a
sacrament "to be performed at the church door," in order to make it a
source of revenue to the Church. Marriage, however, was reckoned too
sinful "to be allowed for many years to take place within the sacred
building consecrated to God, and deemed too holy to permit the entrance
of a woman within its sacred walls at certain periods of her life."
L. B. C.
CHAPTER II.
1 Timothy iii.
2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant,
sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach;
3 Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but
patient, not a brawler, not covetous;
4 One that ruleth well in his own house, having his children in
subjection with all gravity:
5 (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take
care of the church of God?)
8 Likewise must the deacons be grave, not double-tongued, not given to
much wine, not greedy of filthy lucre.
11 Even so must their wives be grave, not slanderers, sober, faithful
in all things.
12 Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children
and their own houses well.
In this chapter the advice of the Apostle in regard to the overseer or
bishop is unexceptionable. The first injunction that relates to woman
is, that the bishop must be the husband of one wife. Under the present
ideas of Christendom, the inference naturally is that the bishop was
enjoined to be the husband of but one wife. If, as appears probable,
this was an injunction in favor of monogamy, it was a true and
progressive idea established with the foundation of the Christian
Church.
Deacons also are instructed to be the husbands of one wife. "Women in
like manner must be grave, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all
things." It is not clear whether this is spoken for the direction of
women in general in the Church, or for the wives of deacons. The
advice, however, is equally good for either class. The word "sober" in
the old version is rendered "temperate" in the new one. Whether women
in those days were liable to take too much wine does not appear. But
nowhere in the Old or the New Testaments is there an account of
drunkenness by women.
The directions for the conduct of the bishop are explicit. He is to be
"gentle, not contentious," which sets aside much that distinguishes the
masculine nature. In fact, with the exception of the qualification
"apt to teach," before forbidden, the entire list of the necessary
qualities of a bishop is that of womanly characteristics. Temperate,
sober-minded (i. e., not given to trifling speech), orderly, given to
hospitality, no brawler, no striker (this supposedly refers to
pugilistic tendencies), but gentle, not contentious. Every
qualification is essentially womanly.
1 Timothy v.
3 Honour widows that are widows indeed.
4 But if any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to
shew piety at home, and to requite their parents: for that is good and
acceptable before God.
5 Now she that is a widow indeed, and desolate, trusteth in God,
6 But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.
8 But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his
own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an Infidel.
9 Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years,
having been the wife of one man.
10 Well reported of for her good works; if she have brought up
children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints'
feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently
followed every good work.
11 But the younger widows refuse: for when they have begun to wax
wanton against Christ, they will marry;
12 Having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith.
13 And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to
house; and not only idle, but tattlers also, and busybodies, speaking
things which they ought not.
14 I will therefore that the Younger women marry, bear children, guide
the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.
15 For some are already turned aside after Satan,
16 If any man or woman that believeth have widows, let them relieve
them, and let not the church be charged; that it may relieve them that
are widows indeed.
No one can be desolate who has a purpose and a sphere of action, with
ability to work. Paul's widow, who was a widow indeed, "continueth in
supplication and prayers night and day." What an existence! Desolate
indeed. Exercising but one faculty of the soul--that of supplication!
Women of this period cannot be too thankful, that the numerous
opportunities for educational and philanthropic work are open to them
in addition to the opportunities to win subsistence in the various
avocations of life.
The widow who was to be enrolled, to be provided for by the Church, must
be three score years old, having been the wife of one man. Whether this
is a repudiation of second marriages, or refers to polyandry, is not
apparent. This obligation of the early Church to provide for women who
had fulfilled the duties of motherhood, ministered to the afflicted,
washed the saints' feet, and diligently followed every good work, is a
recognition of a right principle, and which should be made a part of
social organization.
But he directs that younger women be refused. Paul thought that women
could not be loyal followers of Christ and "desire to marry." Therefore
he desires them all to marry, to bear children and to rule the family.
Another inconsistency of Paul. Having stated as expressly the teaching
of the spirit that the doctrine forbidding to marry was of devils, he
here again claims that when the younger widows desire to, marry they
have waxed wanton against Christ. There is even by Paul one place in
which woman is to be the head. If she may not teach, she may provide
for the physical comfort of her husband and family.
The Apostle accuses women of learning to be idle, going about from
house to house, of being tattlers and busybodies--these young widows,
or unmarried women. What a spectacle the thousands of bread-winning
young and unmarried women of to-day, would be to Paul if he could come
here! And these young women have no time to go from house to house, or
even to fulfill social obligations. And the students in our colleges
and universities, Paul would not find them tattlers or busybodies. What
could the unmarried women of Paul's time do? They had no absorbing
mental pursuit or physical occupation. Perhaps they could not read; and
there was little for them to study. Lacking mental furnishing to noble
ends, they must of necessity deal with trivial matters. What could a
woman do who had no home to care for, no business to attend to, perhaps
nothing to read (if she could read), no social organizations in which
she had a place and part except the religious assemblies in which she
was to be "in quietness," "in silence"?
They were not worthy of condemnation if they were going from house to
house and tattling. The unmarried woman will not lack opportunity for
the dignity of self-support and the ministrations of philanthropy in
the new dispensation. Womanhood and its high possibilities of mind and
of heart are worthy attainments, even though not crowned with self-
elected motherhood. Whether married or unmarried, the highest duty of
every living soul, woman or man, is to seek truth and righteousness;
and the liberty which is of the spirit of truth does not admit of the
bondage of husband and wife,
the one to the other. Freedom to seek soul development is paramount to
all other demands.
1 Timothy i.
2 Too Timothy, my dearly beloved son: grace, mercy, and peace, from
God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
5 When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee,
which dwelt first in thy grand-mother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and
I am persuaded that in thee also.
Timothy, whom Paul calls his true child in faith, and whom he placed
as overseer, or bishop of the first church at Ephesus, as all
commentators agree, was the child of mixed parentage, his father being
a Greek and his mother a Jewess. It is supposed that his father died in
Timothy's childhood, as no mention is made of him. Timothy, then, was
educated religiously by the teaching and the example of his mother and
his grandmother. Paul expresses with fervent emotion his remembrance of
his "beloved child," and of the unfeigned faith which is in him, and,
"which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois and thy mother Eunice."
After having instructed Timothy to exercise all the gentle virtues
which are feminine and womanly, the Apostle in this acknowledgment that
he was the child of a devout mother and grandmother, discloses a fact
which places in no favorable light his strenuous opposition to woman's
equality in the Church. This mother and grandmother under whose
teaching Timothy had become qualified to receive the important office
of bishop, and whose faithfulness so endeared him to the Apostle, were
required to keep silence in the Church equally with all other women
whose evidence of faith were not so conclusive. There was no
distinction. The ban was placed upon woman solely on the ground of sex.
The Church has only in this nineteenth century partially amended this
record, by establishing the order of deaconesses for women who devote
themselves to good works and to religious teaching. While in the liberal
denominations the pulpit is accessible to woman, it is only in very
recent years that in any evangelistic denomination it has been
permissible for woman to "teach." The priesthood are as unwilling to-day
as was Paul in the first century, that women shall be placed on an
equality in offices of distinction. Perhaps this disposition comes of a
dim, not fully evolved consciousness that, "when the present evolution
of woman is complete, a new world will result; for woman is destined to
rule the world. She is the centre and the fountain of its life," which
the new man has recently announced from his pulpit.
There is no prerogative more tenaciously held by the common man than
that of rulership. There is no greater opposition to woman's equality
in the State than there is in the Church, and this notwithstanding the
fact that the Church and the pulpit are largely sustained by women. The
Church is spiritually and actually a womanly institution, and this is
recognized by the unvarying expression, "Mother Church." Yet man
monopolizes all offices of distinction and of leadership, and receives
the salaries for material support. As the inevitable result, spiritual
life has become so languid as to be ineffectual, and an effort is being
persistently pushed by a portion of the Evangelical Church, a portion,
too, which most strenuously keeps its women silent, to fortify the
Church by the power of civil government.
There is no suggestion in the teaching of Jesus, as recorded, of
compelling individuals, authorities, or powers, to acknowledge God. The
religion of Jesus is a voluntary acceptance of truth. "God is a spirit,
and they who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth." There
can be no compulsory life of the spirit, quickened by the source of
life, light and love. The masculine idea of compelling a formal
acknowledgment of God by the State is entirely unchristian.
Until the feminine is recognized in the Divine Being, and justice is
established in the Church by the complete equality of woman with man,
the Church cannot be thoroughly Christian. "Honor thy father and thy
mother" is the commandment. The human race cannot be brought to its
highest state until motherhood is equally honored with fatherhood in
human institutions.
L. B. C.
EPISTLES OF PETER AND JOHN.
1 Peter iii.
1 Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if
any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the
conversation of the wives;
3 Whose adorning, let it not be that out, ward adorning of plaiting
the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;
7 Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge,
giving honour unto the wife, as unto the weaker vessel.
Woman's influence is most clearly set forth by all the Apostles in
meek submission to their husbands and to all the Church ordinances and
discipline. A reverent silence, a respectful observance of rules and
authorities was their power. They could not aid in spreading the gospel
and in converting their husbands to the true faith by teaching, by
personal attraction, by braided hair or ornaments. The normal beauty of
a sanctified heart would be manifested by a meek and quiet spirit,
valuable in the sight of God as well as their husbands, and do far more
to fix their affections and to secure their esteem than the studied
decoration of fashionable apparel. Woman's love of satins, of velvets,
of laces, and of jewels, has its corresponding expression in man's love
of wealth, of position, and his ambition for personal and family
aggrandizement.
There is much talk of the poor and the needy, especially during
political campaigns. In the autumn of 1896, when the workingman's
interests formed the warp and woof of every speech, three thousand
children stood in the streets of New York City, for whom there was no
room in the schoolhouses and no play-grounds; and yet thousands of
dollars were spent in buying votes. Large, well-ventilated homes for
those who do the work of the world, plenty of schoolhouses and play-
grounds for the children of the poor, would be much more beneficial to
the race than expensive monuments to dead men, and large appropriations
from the public treasury for holidays and convivial occasions to honor
men in high places.
The Apostles having given such specific directions as to the toilets
of women, their hair, ornaments, manners and position, in the Church,
the State and the home, one is curious to know what kind of honor is
intended for this complete subordination. Man is her head, her teacher,
her guardian and her Saviour. What Christ is to him, that is he to the
weaker vessel. It is fair to infer that what he has done in the past he
will continue to do in the future. Unless she rebels outright, he will
make her a slave, a subject, the mere reflection of another human will.
E. C. S.
2 John i.
1 The elder unto the elect lady and her children,
5 And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new
commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that
we love one another.
6 And this is love, that we walk after his commandments.
12 Having many things to write unto you, I would not write with paper
and ink; but I trust to come unto you, and speak face to face, that our
joy may be full.
Some critics conjecture that the Church at Jerusalem is meant by the
"elect lady," and the one at Ephesus by her elect sister. Others
suppose that an eminent and honorable Christian woman was intended by
the "elect lady," and that some other Christian woman, well known in
the Church, was intended by her elect sister. The aged Apostle wrote
this short letter to this lady, who was a person of rank, hence he did
not scruple to give to her the title of honor. He assured her children
of his deep interest in their welfare. The word lady was always used in
addressing, or speaking of one who was an acknowledged superior. In
their travels about the country the Apostles especially enjoyed the
hospitality of families of rank. Though democratic in their principles,
they were susceptible to the attractions of wealth and of culture.
E. C. S.
REVELATION.
CHAPTER I.
Revelation i.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto
his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and
signified it by his angel unto his servant John:
2 Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus
Christ, and of all things that he saw.
3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this
prophecy and keep those things which are written therein: for the time
is at hand.
4 John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and
peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from
the seven Spirits which are before his throne.
John Morley once said to the priests--"We shall not attack you, we
shall explain you." The Book of Revelation, properly Re-Veilings,
cannot even be approximately explained without some knowledge of
astrology. It is a purely esoteric work, largely referring to woman,
her intuition, her spiritual powers, and all she represents. Even the
name of its putative author, John, is identical in meaning with "dove,"
the emblem of the Holy Ghost, the female principle of the Divinity.
This book came down from old Egyptian "mystery" times, and was one of
the profoundly "sacred" and profoundly "secret" books of the great
temple of Luxor, the words "sacred" and "secret" possessing the same
meaning during the mysteries. All knowledge was anciently concealed in
the mysteries; letters, numbers, astrology (until the sixteenth century
identical with astronomy), alchemy, the parent of chemistry, these, and
all other sciences were hidden from the common people. Even to all
initiates the most important part of the mysteries was not revealed.
It is not then strange that such a profoundly mystic book as
Re-Veilings should be so little understood by the Christian Church
as to have been many times rejected from the sacred canon. It did not
appear in the Syriac Testament as late as 1562. Neither did Luther, the
great reformer of the sixteenth century, nor his coworker, Erasmus,
respect it, Luther declaring that for his part he would as soon it had
not been written; Calvin, also, had small regard for it. The first
collection of the New Testament canon, decided upon by the Council of
Laodicea (A. D. 364), omitted the entire book from its list of sacred
works; Jerome said that some Greek churches would not receive it. The
celebrated Vatican codex in the papal library, the oldest uncial or
Biblical manuscript in existence, does not contain Revelation. The
canon of the New Testament was fixed as it now is by Pope Innocent I.,
A. D. 405, with the Book of Revelation still in dispute.
Its mystic character has been vaguely surmised by the later Church,
which, while claiming to be the exponent of spiritual things, has yet
taught the grossest materialism, and from no part of the Bible more
fully than from Revelation. It asserts a literal coming of Christ in
the literal clouds of heaven, riding a literal horse, while Gabriel
(angel of the moon), with a literal trumpet sounds the blast of earth's
destruction. A literal devil is to be bound for a thousand years,
during which time the saints are to dwell on earth, "every man to have
a farm," as I once heard a devout Methodist declare. "But there will
not be land enough for that," objected a brother. "O, well, the earth
is now two-thirds water, and that will be dried up," was the reply. To
such straits have Christians been driven in their efforts to comprehend
this book.
But during the centuries a few students have not failed to apprehend
its character; the Abbe Constant (Eliphas Levi), declaring it to be one
of the masterpieces of occult science. While for even a partial
comprehension of Re-Veilings, some knowledge of astrology is required,
it is no less true that the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation
demands a knowledge of astrology, of letters, and of numbers, with
their interchangeable values as they were understood by those who wrote
it, "a book written by initiates for initiates." Sir William Drummond
proved that all names of places in the holy land of the Hebrews were
astronomical.
Not only were Hebrew feasts and seasons based upon that science, but
many Christian ones, as Easter and Christmas are due to the same cause.
The festival of St. John the Baptist takes place at the time of the
sun's lowest southern declination, December 22. In like manner the
festival of St. John the Evangelist occurs at midsummer day, when the
sun reaches its highest northern declination. All those church periods
are purely astronomical or astrological in character. The "Alpha" and
"Omega" of Revelation contain profound evolutionary truths,
significative of spirit and of matter, or God unmanifested and
manifested.
The famous seven churches of Asia, to whom this book was largely
addressed, were all astrological and based upon the seven planets of
the ancients. Of these seven churches that of Ephesus stood first. On
the shores of Aegean Sea, it was famous for its magnificent temple to
the moon-goddess Artemis, or Diana. This temple was one of the seven
wonders of the ancient world, nations vieing with each other in their
gifts to add to its splendor. The moon being the emblem or "angel" of
Ephesus, the cry of the multitude when Paul spake there, "Great is
Diana of the Ephesians!" was an astrological recognition of the power
of the moon over human affairs. It is to be noted that none of the
seven churches of Asia received the writings of Paul. In the astrology
of Chaldea, as in that of Asia Minor, the moon was first among the
planets. It must be remembered that the numbers seven and twelve, so
frequently mentioned in Re-Veilings, are of great occult significance
in relation to the earth.
The angel of the church of Smyrna, to whom the second letter was
addressed, was the sun, "the only sun" dying and rising each day; that
of Pergamos, the beneficent Jupiter, who became the supreme god of the
Greek world. The angel of Thyatira, the lovely and loving Venus, by
some deemed the most occult of the planets, sustained her old-time
character for lasciviousness in her connection with that church. The
fiery, warlike Mars, angel of the church of Sardis, called "the Great
King," and Saturn, the angel of the church of Philadelphia, are
astrologically known as malefic planets. Saturn identified with Satan,
matter and time, is for occult reasons looked upon as the great
malefic. The angel of the church of Laodicea,
Mercury or Hermes, the ambiguous planet, is, next to Venus, the most
occult of all the planets; it is, masculine or feminine, the patron of
learning or of thieves, as it is aspected. Most profound secrets
connected with the spiritual interests of the race during the middle
portion of the fifth round are hidden in the letter to the angel of the
church of Laodicea.
M. J. G.
This book is styled the Apocalypse or Revelation, and is supposed to
have been written by John, called the Divine, on the Island of Patmos,
in the Aegean Sea, whither he was banished. Professor Goldwin Smith, in
a recent work entitled "Guesses at the Riddle of Existence," thinks
that we have but little reliable information as to the writers of
either the Old or the New Testaments. In this case the style is so
different from that of John, that the same Apostle could not have
written both books. Whoever wrote The Revelation was evidently the
victim of a terrible and extravagant imagination and of visions which
make the blood curdle.
Revelation ii.
18 And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write:
19 I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy
patience.
20 Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou
sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophet, to teach
and to seduce my servants.
21 And I gave her space to repent; and she repented not.
22 Behold, I will cast her into great tribulation.
23 And I will kill her children and all the churches shall know that I
am he which searcheth the hearts; and I will give unto every one of you
according to your works.
The town of Thyatira lay to the southeast of Pergamos. The epistle to
the church was sent by John, with some commendations; but it was said
that there was a worm at the root of its prosperity, which would
destroy the whole unless it were removed. It is not agreed whether the
expression Jezebel, is to be understood literally or figuratively. From
the reading of some manuscripts it has been thought, that the wife of
the presiding minister was intended, that she had obtained great
influence in the affairs of the church and made a bad use of it; that
she pretended to have prophetic gifts, and
under that sanction propagated abominable principles.
The figurative meaning, however, seems more suited to the style and
the manner of this book; and in this sense it denotes a company of
persons, of the spirit and character of Jezebel, within the church
under one principal deceiver. Jezebel, a Zidonian and a zealous
idolater, being married to the King of Israel (Ahab) contrary to the
Divine law, used all her influence to draw the Israelites from the
worship of Jehovah into idolatry. Satan and woman are the chief
characters in all the frightful visions; and the sacred period of
maternity is made to illustrate some of the most terrible upheavals in
national life, as between the old dragon and the mother of the race.
Whatever this book was intended to illustrate, its pictures are
painfully vivid.
E. C. S.
CHAPTER II.
Revelation xii.
And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the
sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve
stars:
2 And she being with child travailed in birth.
3 And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red
dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his
heads.
4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and the
dragon stood before the woman to devour her child as soon as it was
born.
5 And she brought forth a man child, that was caught up unto God.
6 And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place
prepared of God.
13 And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he was
wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed.
The constellation Draco, the Great Serpent, was at one time ruler of
the night, being formerly at the very centre of the heavens and so
large that it was called the Great Dragon. Its body spread over seven
signs of the Zodiac, which were called its seven heads. So great a
space did it occupy, that, in mystic language, it "drew a third part of
the stars from heaven and cast them to the earth." Thuban, in its tail,
was formerly the pole-star, or "judge of the earth!" It approached much
nearer the true pole than Cynosura, the present pole-star, which is one
and a half degrees distant and will never approach nearer than twelve
minutes, while Thuban was only ten minutes distant.
At an early day serpents were much respected; they were thought to
have more "pneuma" or spirit than any other living thing and were
termed "fiery." For this cause high initiates were called "naga," or
serpents of wisdom; and a living serpent was always carried in the
celebration of the mysteries. During the brilliant eighteenth and
nineteenth Egyptian dynasties, Draco was a great god; but when this
constellation lost its place in the heavens, and Thuban ceased to be
the guiding sidereal Divinity, it shared the fate of all the fallen
gods. "The gods of our fathers are our devils," says an Arabic proverb.
When Re-Veilings was written, Draco had become a fallen angel
representing evil spirituality. By precessional motion the foot of
Hercules rests upon its head, and we find it depicted as of the most
material color, red.
Colors and jewels are parts of astrology; and ancient cities, as
Ectabana, were built and colored after the planets. The New Jerusalem
of Re-Veilings is purely an astrological city, not to be understood
without a knowledge of mystic numbers, letters, jewels and colors. So,
also, the four and twenty elders of Re-Veilings are twenty-four stars
of the Chaldean Zodiac, "counsellors" or "judges," which rose and set
with it. Astrology was brought into great prominence by the visit of
the magi, the zodiacal constellation Virgo, the "woman with a child,"
ruling Palestine, in which country Bethlehem is situated. The great
astronomer and astrologer, Ptolemy, judged the character of countries
from the signs ruling them, as to this day is done by astrologers.
The woman attacked by the great red dragon, Cassiopea, was known as
Nim-Makh, the Mighty Lady. For many centuries, at intervals of about
three hundred years, a brilliant star suddenly appeared in this
constellation, remaining visible a few months, then as suddenly
disappearing. In mystic phraseology this star was a child. It was seen
A. D. 945, A. D. 1264, and was noted by Tycho Brahe and other
astronomers in 1562, when it suddenly became so brilliant that it could
be seen at midday, gradually assuming the appearance of a great
conflagration, then as gradually fading away. Since thus caught up to
the throne of God, this star-child has not again appeared, although
watched for by astronomers during the past few years. The Greeks, who
borrowed so much from the Egyptians, created from this book the story
of Andromeda and the monster sent by Neptune to destroy her, while
Madame Blavatsky says that St. John's dragon is Neptune, a symbol of
Atlantaen magi.
The crown of twelve stars upon the head of the apocalyptic woman are the
twelve constellations of the Zodiac. Clothed with the sun, woman here
represents the Divinity of the feminine, its spirituality as opposed to
the materiality of the masculine; for in Egypt the sun, as giver of
life, was regarded as feminine, while the moon, shining by reflected
light, was looked upon as masculine. With her feet upon the moon, woman,
corresponding to and representing the soul, portrays the ultimate
triumph of spiritual things over material things--over the body, which
man, or the male principle, corresponds to and represents.
"There was war in heaven." The wonderful progress and freedom of
woman, as woman, within the last half century, despite the false
interpretation of the Bible by the Church and by masculine power, is
the result of this great battle; and all attempts to destroy her will
be futile. Her day and hour have arrived; the dragon of physical power
over her, the supremacy of material things in the world, as depicted by
the male principle, are yielding to the spiritual, represented by
woman. The eagle, true bird of the sun and emblem of our own great
country, gives his wings to her aid; and the whole earth comes to help
her against her destroyer.
And thus must Re-Veilings be left with much truth untouched, yet with
the hope that what has been written will somewhat help to a
comprehension of this greatly misunderstood yet profoundly "sacred" and
"secret" book, whose true reading is of such vast importance to the
human race.
M. J. G.
Here is a little well intended respect for woman as representing the
Church. In this vision she appears clothed with the sun, and the moon
under her feet, which denotes her superiority, says the commentator, to
her reflected feebler light of the Mosaic dispensation. The crown of
twelve stars on her head represents her honorable maintenance of the
doctrines of the Church. just as the woman was watched by the dragon,
and her children devoured, so was the Church watched and persecuted by
the emissaries of the Papal hierachy {sic}. The seven heads of the
dragon represent the seven hills on which Rome is built; the ten horns,
ten kingdoms into which the Western empire was divided. The tail of the
dragon drawing a third part of the stars represent the power of the
Romans, who had conquered one-third part of the earth.
Revelation xvii.
3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness; and I saw a
woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy,
having saves heads and ten horns.
4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked
with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in bar
hand.
5 And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great.
18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth
over the kings of the earth.
The woman draped in scarlet, seated on a beast, was the emblem of the
Church of Rome. The beast represents the temporal power by which it has
been supported. These colors have always distinguished the popes and
the cardinals, as well as the Roman emperors and senators. The horses
and the mules were covered with scarlet cloth to answer the
description, and the woman was decked in the brightest colors, in gold
and jewels. No one can describe the pomp, splendor and magnificence of
the Church of Rome. The cup in the woman's hand contained potions to
intoxicate her victims. It was the custom at that time for public women
to have their names on their foreheads, and as they represented the
abominations of social life, they were often named after cities. The
writers of the Bible are prone to make woman the standard for all kinds
of abominations; and even motherhood, which should be held most sacred,
is used to illustrate the most revolting crimes. What picture can be
more horrible than the mother, in her hour of mortal agony, watched by
the dragon with his seven heads and ten horns!
Why so many different revising committees of bishops and clergymen
should have retained this book as holy and inspiring to the ordinary
reader, is a mystery. It does not seem possible that the Divine John
could have painted these dark pictures of the struggles of humanity
with the Spirit of Evil. Verily, we need an expurgated edition of the
Old and the New Testaments before they are fit to be placed in the
hands of our youth to be read in the public schools and in theological
seminaries, especially if we wish to inspire our children with proper
love and respect for the Mothers of the Race.
E. C. S.
APPENDIX.
"Ignorance is the mother of devotion."--Jeremy Taylor.
The following letters and comments are in answer to the questions:
1. Have the teachings of the Bible advanced or retarded the
emancipation of women?
2. Have they dignified or degraded the Mothers of the Race?
Dear Mrs. Stanton:--I believe, as you said in your birthday address,
that "women ought to demand that the Canon law, the Mosaic code, the
Scriptures, prayer-books and liturgies be purged of all invidious
distinctions of sex, of all false teaching as to woman's origin,
character and destiny." I believe that the Bible needs explanation and
comment on many statements therein which tend to degrade woman. Christ
taught the equality of the sexes, and Paul said: "There is neither male
nor female; ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Hence I welcome "The
Woman's Bible" as a needed commentary in regard to woman's position.
Phebe A. Hanaford.
If the suggestions and teachings of the various books of our Bible,
concerning women, are compared with the times in which severally they
probably were written, in general they are certainly in advance of most
contemporary opinion. The hurtful blunder of later eras has been the
setting up of early, cruder standards touching the relations of men and
of women, as moulding influences and guides to broader civilizations.
They cannot be authoritative.
I believe that the Bible's Golden Rule has been the real substratum of
all religions, when fairly applied from their own point of view. But
the broader and more discriminating applications of the rule
theoretically both to men and to women in every relation of life have
made, and necessarily must have made, most of the earlier practical
regulations and teachings, beneficent perhaps in their day, pernicious
in ours when regarded as still authoritative. Interpreted by its
fundamental principles, in the light of its time--not in the fast
increasing light of ours, which, as I understand it, is your
searchlight and that of your collaborators--I have very little quarrel
with the Bible. But neither have I much quarrel with Buddhism, with
Paganism in general, or with any serious religious cult, tested in the
same way.
Turn on the light and so change the point of view. But criticism of
ancient creeds, literatures or morals, to be entirely fair and just.
must be comparative criticism. To be broadly comparative it must
virtually include contemporary and intermediate as well as existing
creeds, literatures or morals. Very sincerely yours,
Antoinette Brown Blackwell.
Like the shield which was gold on one side and silver on the other,
the Bible has two sides or aspects. As travellers approaching the
shield from opposite directions quarrelled over its nature because each
saw only that side which he had approached, people have differed in
their view of the Bible and its influence upon mankind because only one
aspect has been visible to them.
Acceptance of the Bible literally tends to retard the development of
both man and woman, and consequently the establishment of their
highest and best relation to each other, a relation upon
which depends their usefulness to the community. Both the law of Moses
and the teachings of Paul, thus considered, belittle woman more than
they exalt her. While words of praise and promises of future place and
power are not altogether lacking, this is the impression left upon the
mind of the reader who is not able to pass around to the other side and
gain another view.
Exoterically considered, the Bible offers less of the ethical and the
spiritual than of the physical possibilities of woman as the complement
to man; but esoterically considered, it is found to exact the spiritual
possibilities above the rest--above even the like possibilities of the
man. The Bible has been, and will continue to be, a stumbling-block in
the way of development of inherent resources, consequently of the
truest civilization, in proportion to the strength of its exoteric
aspect with the people. It will cease to be a stumbling block and
become a powerful impetus in the desired direction instead, when its
inner meaning becomes revelator, companion and friend.
In the literal rendering of the Bible, woman appears first and above
all as man's subordinate; but this inner meaning shows her first and
above all as the individual equal with him, and afterward his
complement, or what she is able to be for him. Portrayed as the mother
of the Saviour of the world, one woman is exalted above all women when
only physical motherhood is seen; and the consequence has been that one
woman has been worshiped and the sex has been crucified. This one woman
has been lifted above her place; and all women have fallen
correspondingly below it.
Not till "the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the
world" shall pierce with its rays the darkness of the sensuous nature,
will woman's spiritual motherhood for the race, be discerned as the way
of its redemption from that darkness and its consequences. As that
light is uncovered in individual souls the inner meaning of the Bible
will appear, woman's nature as the individual and her true relativity
to man be seen. Then the mistakes which have been ignorantly made will
be rectified, because both sides of the shield will be seen. Men and
women will clasp hands as comrades with a common destiny; religion and
science will each reveal their destiny and prove that truth which the
Bible even exoterically declares that "the woman is the glory of the
man."
Ursula N. Gestefeld.
It is requested that I shall answer two questions:
1. Has the Bible advanced or retarded woman's emancipation?
2. Has it elevated or degraded the Mothers of the Race?
If by "emancipation" is meant the social, legal and political position
of women, and if by the "Bible" the authorized version of the Old
Testament, it would be difficult to prove that the opponents of that
emancipation have not derived their narrow views from many passages in
the Bible. This, however, applies only to the exoteric interpretation,
the weak points of which have been so mercilessly exposed in Part I. of
"The Woman's Bible."
The Divine wisdom whose occult truths form the basis of Judaism, of
Christianity and of all other religions, has nothing to do with the
subjection of sex: and to be fair we must confess that there are many
texts in the exoteric version which proclaim the equality of woman,
notably the first chapter of Genesis. I believe that H. P. Blavatsky
was right when she said of the Bible: "It is a grand volume, a
masterpiece composed of clever, ingenious fables, containing great
verities; but it reveals the latter only to those who, like the
Initiates, have a key to its inner meaning; a tale sublime in its
morality and didactics truly--still a tale and an allegory; a repertory
of invented personages in its older Jewish portions, and of dark
sayings and parables in its later additions, and thus quite misleading
to any one ignorant of its esotericism."
This being the case, the discussion which "The Woman's Bible" raises
is to my judgment somewhat futile. It is said that from Genesis to
Revelation the Bible degrades woman. Does it not, as it stands, equally
in many passages degrade the conception of the Supreme Being? Many
noble and Divine truths have been utterly degraded by the coarse
fallacies of men. All this is so sure to be made clear in the near
future that I am doubtful of the wisdom of laying too much stress on
passages whose meaning is entirely misunderstood by the vast majority
of Christians.
Slowly we see a light breaking. When the dawn comes we shall have a
revision of the Bible on very different lines from any yet attempted.
In the meantime may we not ask, Is there any curse or crime which has
not appealed to the Bible for support? Polygamy, capital punishment,
slavery and war have all done so. Why not the subjection of women? Let
us hold fast that which is good in the Bible and the rest will modify
itself in the future, as it has done in the past, to the needs of
humanity and the advance of knowledge.
London, England.
Ursula Bright.
Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton:--Dear Madam: I have received your letter
and the specimen of "The Woman's Bible" which you have sent me. I have
not had time to examine it minutely; but I have been aware of your
purpose from the beginning. I am afraid that I cannot say anything
which you will wish to print; for I look upon the Bible very
differently from what you do.
I have no superstitious reverence for it, but hold it in high regard
as a valuable collection of very old literature well representing the
thought and the life of a great, earnest people at different periods of
their career. As such, it is full of precious lessons of wisdom and of
sweet and beautiful poetry. I certainly could not endorse Mr. White's
statement; for I have very recently in public lectures spoken of the
great value of this collection as one of the best educators of the
common people in Christendom generally, and especially in Scotland and
the United States. I should say the same, so far as my knowledge
extends, of the Koran and other so-called sacred books.
That the superstitious worship of the Bible as a direct revelation
from God, and the practice of using what is merely the history of human
life as authority for human action now, or as prophecy, has produced or
strengthened great evils in the world I readily admit, and I welcome
all the thorough and searching criticism which can be applied to the
Bible, but nothing is gained by exaggeration. There are noble examples
of woman in the Old Testament of the heroic type, as in the New
Testament of the tender and loving one.
The whole subject of the relations of the sexes is a deep and
difficult one; and the ages have been struggling with it. That woman is
handicapped by peculiarities of physical structure seems evident; and
according to the character of the age these are more or less
unfavorable. Civilization in many instances has emphasized and
increased them to her great disadvantage; but it is only by making her
limitations her powers that the balance can be restored, and in an age
of more intellectual and spiritual superiority this will come to pass.
I read this in the development of woman's life in education, in
industry and in self-support.
I have tried to express my views frankly, although I cannot fully
illustrate them in a brief letter, which is all I have time for at
present. Your own active mind will follow out whatever there is of
value in my thought. Yours very respectfully,
Jamaica Plain, Mass.
Ednah D. Cheney.
The Bible--both the books of the Old Testament and of the New, express
the views in regard to woman which prevailed when those books were
written. The conception in regard to woman was that she was naturally
man's inferior, that her position should be one of subordination, that
she should have no will of her own, except as it was in accord with
that of her father, husband, or master.
The enlightened portions of the world have gradually been outgrowing
these ideas. This progress has constantly been opposed by the influence
of Bible teachings on the subject. The influence of the Bible against
the elevation of woman, like its influence in favor of slavery, has
been great because of the infallibility and the Divine authority with
which the teachings of the Bible have been invested. If the Bible had,
like other books, been judged by its actual merits, in the light of
reason and common sense, its teachings
about woman would have had no authoritative weight; but when millions
have for centuries been brought up to believe that the Bible is an
inspired and infallible revelation from God, its influence has been
mischievous in a thousand ways.
A collection of books which teaches, as from God, that man was made
first for the glory of God, and woman for man simply; that woman was
first to sin, and therefore should be in submission to man; that
motherhood implies moral impurity and requires a sin offering (twice as
much in the case of a female as a male child), must have continued to
keep woman in a degraded condition just in proportion as such ideas
have been believed to be true and inspired by God.
The advancement of woman throughout Christendom has been going on only
where these doctrines have been outgrown or modified through the
influence of science, of skepticism, and of liberal thought generally.
That the Bible does teach that woman's position should be one of
subordination and submission to man, and that through her first came
sin into the world, is indisputable; and I do not see how such
teachings, believed to be direct from God, can be accepted without
retarding woman's progress. Mr. Lecky and others have shown
historically that these Oriental conceptions have distinctly degraded
woman wherever they have prevailed.
What we should naturally expect to have resulted from these
conceptions is shown by experience actually to have been the result of
such teachings, enforced by the authority of Moses and of St. Paul.
The idea of woman's equality with man in all natural rights and
opportunities finds no support in the Bible. The doctrine that there is
neither male nor female, neither bond nor free, in Christ Jesus, had no
practical application to social conditions. It left the slave in
chains, and the woman in fetters. Where the old theological dogmas
respecting woman are the least impaired, woman's condition is the least
hopeful. Where the authority of reason is in the ascendant, or where it
is superseding the authority of book revelations, of creeds and of
churches, woman's position is the most advanced, her rights are the
most completely recognized, her opportunities for
progress the most fully allowed, and her character the most fully
developed.
Sarah A. Underwood.
A solution, in accordance with the fundamental laws of ethics, of the
woman question, which is a part of the great social question, can be
arrived at only by a transformation of the social order of things, made
in conformity with the principle of equal liberty and equal justice to
each and every one.
As a necessary proposition to let this principle be universally
recognized, we must designate the philosophical view of the world,
based upon scientific Materialism, which former, penetrated by the
conviction that the natural doctrine of evolution also retains its
validity with regard to the mental, vital principles of humanity,
believes in the social, political and ethical evolution of human
society, from which progressive evolution the equal claim to all social
relations of the female and the male halves of humanity are inseparable.
As the firmest enemy of modern ethics based upon scientific knowledge
of natural laws, there stands the Christian religion, the outspring of
the Jewish one, which former, resting upon the principle of the
necessary subordination of woman to man, in consequence thereof
energetically combats the attempts for equal rights to both sexes, and,
as far as lies in its power, ever will and must combat the same.
To the influence of the Christian Church upon social conditions we must
in the first instance ascribe that, notwithstanding all advances of
culture, the mental development of the female sex has been
systematically kept back through all these tens of centuries. And not
only for the reason that the Christian religion considers woman as a
creature inferior to man, owing to the legendary eating of the apple by
Eve ("Satan," says St. Augustine, "considered the man to be less
credulous and approachable"), but also--and possibly foremost of all--
for the reason that the Christian Church knows very well that in woman,
intellectually undeveloped, and therefore easy to be led, and ready to
lend a willing ear to priestly promptings, it possesses its most
powerful ally, and knows that it would lose that powerful support as
soon as women, by a thorough mental training, by an elevating education
adapted to their condition of mind and of fortune, would be taken away
from clerical influences.
As a contrast to the lying statement, which falsifies the historical
facts, that the Christian religion has raised the condition of woman,
the Christian Church offers to woman nothing but serfdom. And it is the
first duty of those women who combat for right and liberty to unite in
the fight against religious obscurity, against the powers of darkness
and the suppression resting on the Church, that revolution of the mind
for which the most elevated thinkers of all time have suffered and
fought, and to whose deeds alone we owe all advances in the mental
freeing of humanity and all accomplishments of the awakening
consciousness of justice.
Vienna, Austria.
Irma Von Troll-Borostyani.
My Dear Mrs. Stanton:--I thank you very much for the book which I have
received and shall consider with interest. I respond at once and
heartily to the inquiry with which you have honored me. I consider the
Bible the most wonderful record of the evolution of spiritual life
which our race possesses. The sympathetic justice displayed by the
Christ when he said, "Let him that is without sin cast the first
stone," will be the inspiration of the future for man and for woman
alike.
With cordial remembrance of the past and hope for the future,
I am
Sincerely yours,
Hastings, London, England.
Elizabeth Blackwell.
Since it is accepted that the status of woman is the gauge of
civilization, this is the burning question which now presents itself to
Christendom. If the Bible had elevated woman to her present status, it
would seem that the fact could be demonstrated beyond question; yet
to-day the whole Christian world is on the defensive, trying to prove the
validity of this claim. Despite the opposition of Bible teaching, woman
has secured the right to education, to speak and to print her thoughts;
therefore her answer to these questions will decide the fate of
Christian civilization.
In Genesis the Bible strikes the key-note of woman's inferiority and
subjection; and the note rings true through every accepted and rejected
book which has ever constituted the Bible. In the face of this fact,
the supreme effort of the Christian Church has been to inculcate the
idea that Christianity alone has elevated woman, and that all other
religions have degraded and enslaved her. It has feared nothing so much
as to face the truth.
Women have but to read the Bible and the history of Christianity in
conjunction with the sacred books and the histories of other religions
to discover the falsity of this claim, and that the Bible cannot stand
the light of truth. The Bible estimate of woman is summed up in the
words of the president of a leading theological seminary when he
exclaimed to his students, "My Bible commands the subjection of women
forever."
In an address to the graduating class of a woman's college in England,
Mr. Gladstone, in awarding the diplomas, said: "Young women, you who
belong to the favored half of the human race, enormous changes have
taken place in your positions as members of society. It is almost
terrible to look back upon the state of women sixty years ago, upon the
manner in which they were viewed by the law, and the scanty provision
made for their welfare, and the gross injustice, the flagrant
injustice, the shameful injustice, to which in certain particulars they
were subjected. Great changes are taking place, and greater are
impending." For centuries England has been the light of the Christian
world; yet what an indictment is this against Christian England by the
greatest living defender of the Bible and the Christian religion.
This one statement of Mr. Gladstone at once refutes the claim that the
Bible has elevated woman, and confirms the idea of the president of the
theological seminary. Add to these declarations the true condition of
women to-day, and the testimony that the Bible bears against itself,
and the falsity of the claim that it has elevated woman is at once
established. If Mr. Gladstone acknowledges the "gross, flagrant and
shameful injustice" to woman sixty years ago in Christian England, what
can be said of woman's condition six hundred, or sixteen hundred years
ago, when the Bible held the greatest sway over the human mind and
Christianity was at the zenith of its power, when it was denied that
woman has a soul, when she was bought and sold as the cattle of the
field, robbed of her name, her children, her property, and "elevated"
(?) on the gibbet of infamy, and on the high altar of lust by the
decree of the Christian priesthood?
If it can be proven that during the last thousand years the Christian
clergy, with the Bible in their hands, have pointed out or attempted to
remove one single cruelty or wrong which women have suffered, now is
the opportune time to furnish such proof. Now, to-day, when woman
herself is rising in her mental majesty, and when her wrongs are being
righted, Christianity is dead in the strongest brains and the most
heroic hearts of Europe and of America; and now, when the myth and the
miracle of Bible teaching have lost their hold on the minds of people,
this is the very age when the position of woman is more exalted than it
has ever been since Chrisianity {sic} began.
If even the claim that the Bible has elevated woman to her present
status were true, when the light is turned on to the social, domestic
and religious life of the Christian world, this achievement reflects no
credit on Bible teaching. After nineteen hundred years no woman's
thought has ever been incorporated into the ecclesiastical or civil
code of any Christian land.
Monogamic marriage is the strongest institution of the Christian
system; yet all the men of the Old Testament were polygamists; and
Christ and Paul, the central figures of the New Testament, were
celibates and condemned marriage by both precept and example. In
Christian lands monogamy is strictly demanded of women; but bigamy,
trigamy, and polygamy are in reality practised by men as one of the
methods of elevating women, Largely, the majority of men have one
legal wife; but assisted by a small per cent. of youths and of
bachelors, Christendom maintains an army of several millions of
courtesans. Thousands of wretched women are yearly driven to graves in
the potter's field, while manhood is degraded by deception, by
drunkenness and by disease; and the blood of the innocents cries out
against a system which thus "elevates" woman.
The Bible says that "a tree is known by its fruit;" yet this tree is
carefully pruned, watered, and tended as the "Tree of life" whose
fruit, in the words of Archdeacon Farrar, "alone elevates woman, and
shrouds as with a halo of sacred innocence the tender years of the
child." The Bible records that God created woman by a method different
from that employed in bringing into life any other creature, then
cursed her for seeking knowledge; yet God declares in the Bible: "My
people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." "Because thou hast
rejected knowledge I will reject thee." "Add to your faith virtue, and
to virtue knowledge," and knowledge is the savior of the human race.
Ever since Eve was cursed for seeking knowledge, the priest with the
Bible in his hands has pronounced her the most unnatural, untrustworthy
and dangerous creation of God. She has been given away as a sheep at
the marriage altar, classed with the ox and the ass, cursed in
maternity, required to receive purification at the hands of the priest
for the crime of child-bearing, her body enslaved, and robbed of her
name and of her property.
The ownership of the wife established and perpetuated through Bible
teaching is responsible for the domestic pandemonium and the carnival
of wife murder which reigns throughout Christendom. In the United
States alone, in the eighteen hundred and ninety-seventh year of the
Christian era, 3,482 wives, many with unborn children in their bodies,
have been murdered in cold blood by their husbands; yet the Christian
clergy from their pulpits reprove women for not bearing more children
in the face of the fact that millions of the children who have been
born by Christian women are homeless tramps, degraded drunkards,
victims of disease, inmates of insane asylums or prisons, condemned to
the scaffold, or bond slaves to priests or to plutocrats who revel in
wealth at the expense of women whom it is claimed that the Bible has
"emancipated and
elevated."
"Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive
me." This declaration of the Bible puts the brand of infamy upon every
woman who ever bore a child; and this, it is claimed, elevates the
Mothers of the Race. The wife who places her destiny in the keeping of
the father of her children bestows upon him the wealth of her
affection, who is to bear the blood and the name of her husband to
conquests yet undreamed of, and to generations yet unborn, is by Divine
decree made a fountain of iniquity. Would not men and women rather
pluck their tongues out by the roots than brand with infamy the mothers
who went down into the valley and the shadow of death to give birth to
them?
Place the Bible Trinity of "Father, Son and Holy Ghost" beside the
Homeric trinity, "Father, Mother and Child," and prove that the Bible
has elevated woman. The Homeric conception of woman towers like the
Norway pine above the noxious growth of the Mosaic ideal. Compare the
men and the women of the Bible with the stately figures culled from the
temple of Pagan antiquity. Zipporah denouncing Moses as a "bloody
husband," Abraham sending Hagar and his child into the desert and
pocketing twice over the gains from his wife's prostitution; Lot and
his daughters; Judah and his daughter-in-law, Onan; Yamar, the Levite,
and his concubine; David and Bath-sheba; Solomon in the sewer of
sensualism; Rahab, Aholibah, Mary of Bethlehem, and Mary Magdala.
Place these by the side of the man and the woman, Hector and
Andromache, of the "Iliad," who called upon the immortal gods to bless
their child of love; the virgin Isis with her son Horus; the Vedic
virgin Indrance, the mother of the savior-god, Indra; Devaki and her
Divine child, Chrishna; Hipparchia, Pandora, Protogenia, Cornelia,
Plotina, and a host of the noble and virtuous of Pagan history. Prove
by comparing these with the position of woman in Christendom that woman
owes all that she is to the Bible.
Compare Ruth of the Bible with the magnificent Pagan, Penelope, who
refused the hands of kings, was as true to her love as the star is to
the pole, who, after years of waiting, clasped the old wanderer in
rags to her heart, her husband, her long-lost Ulysses; yet this
Pagan woman lived ten centuries before the laws of Moses and of Christ
were promulgated. While there are millions of Penelopes in Christendom,
there are other millions of women, after centuries of Bible teaching,
who lie outside the pale of motherhood, and even outside of the pale of
swine-hood. Under Bible teaching the scarlet woman is "anathema,
marantha," while the scarlet man holds high place in the Sanctuary and
the State.
The by-paths of ecclesiastical history are fetid with the records of
crimes against women; and "the half has never been told." And what of
the history which Christianity is making to-day? Answer, ye victims of
domestic warfare who crowd the divorce courts of Bible lands. Answer,
ye wretched offspring of involuntary motherhood. Answer, ye five
hundred thousand outcast women of Christian America, who should have
been five hundred thousand blessings, bearing humanity in your
unvitiated blood down the streams of time. Answer, ye mental dwarfs and
moral monstrosities, and tell what the Holy Bible has done for you.
While these answers echo through the stately cathedrals of Bible
lands, if the priest, with the Holy Bible in his hands, can show just
cause why woman should not look to reason and to science rather than to
Scripture for deliverance, "let him speak now, or forever after hold
his peace."
When Reason reigns and Science lights the way, a countless host of
women will move in majesty down the coming centuries. A voice will cry,
"Who are these?" and the answer will ring out: "These are the mothers
of the coming race, who have locked the door of the Temple of Faith and
thrown the key away; 'these are they which came out of great
tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the'
fountain of knowledge."
Josephine K. Henry.
My Dear Mrs. Stanton:--To say that "the Bible for two thousand years
has been the greatest block in the way of civilization" is,
misleading. Until the Protestant reformation, the Bible was hidden
from the common people by the hierarchs of the Roman Catholic Church;
and it is only about three centuries that it has been read in the
vernacular.
I cannot agree with you that "the Bible degrades women from Genesis to
Revelation." The Bible, which is a collection of ancient literature,
historic, prophetic, poetic and epistolary, is valuable as showing the
status of woman at the time when the books were written. And the
advice, or the commands, to women given by Paul in the Epistles,
against which there has been so much railing, when studied in the light
of the higher criticism, with the aid of cotemporary {sic} history and
Greek scholarship, show Paul to have been in advance of the religious
teachers of his time.
All these commands that have offended us in the past appear in his
Epistles to the churches in cities of Greece, where marriage was bitter
slavery to women. Paul was aiming to uplift marriage to the level of
the great Christian idea, as he uttered it, in Gal. iii., 28: "There is
neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither
male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Christianity is
simply the universal fatherhood of God, and the universal brotherhood
of man. And Paul was declaring this in the utterance which I have
quoted. All the unjust distinctions of race and of caste, all the
oppressions of slavery and the degradations of woman were effaced by
the two cardinal doctrines of pristine Christianity; and Paul seems to
have lived up to his teaching.
I cannot say that "Christianity has been the foe of woman." The study
of the evolution of woman does not show this. My later studies have
changed many of my earlier crude notions concerning the development of
woman. She has developed slowly, and so has man; and the history of the
past shows that every activity of man which has advanced him has been
shared by her.
There is so wide a belief among orthodox people, nowadays, in what
Professor Briggs calls "the errancy of the Bible," that I doubt if you
will be attacked, no matter how startling may be your heresies in Part
II. Nobody cares much about heresy in these days; and my desire to
withhold my name from your work, as an endorser, comes from my utter
ignorance of it, and from my belief that I should
disagree with you, judging from your letter before me.
Yours very truly,
M. A. Livermore.
My Dear Mrs. Stanton:--You have sent to me the following questions:
"Have the teachings of the Bible advanced or retarded the emancipation
of women? Have they dignified or degraded the Mothers of the Race?"
In reply I would say, that as a matter of fact, the nations which
treat women with the most consideration are all Christian nations; the
countries in which women have open to them all the opportunities for
education which men possess are Christian countries; coeducation
originated in Christian colleges; the professions and the trades are
closed to us in all except Christian lands; and woman's ballot is
unknown except where the Gospel of Christ has mellowed the hearts of
men until they became willing to do women justice. Wherever we find an
institution for the care and the comfort of the defective or the
dependent classes, that institution was founded by men and women who
were Christians by heredity and by training.
No such woman as Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, with her heart aflame
against all forms of injustice and of cruelty, with her intellect
illumed and her tongue quickened into eloquence, has ever been produced
in a country where the Bible was not incorporated into the thoughts and
the affections of the people and had not been so during many
generations.
I think that men have read their own selfish theories into the Book,
that theologians have not in the past sufficiently recognized the
progressive quality of its revelation, nor adequately discriminated
between its records as history and its principles of ethics and of
religion, nor have they until recently perceived that it is not in any
sense a scientific treatise; but I believe that the Bible comes to us
from God, and that it is a sufficient rule of faith and of practice. I
believe that it is no accident which has placed this Book at the
parting of the ways between a good life and a bad one, and enshrined
it at the centre of the holiest scenes which the heart can know,
placing it in the pastor's hand at the wedding and at the grave, on the
father's knee at family prayer, in the trembling fingers of the sick,
and at the pillow of the dying, making it the hope of the penitent and
the power of God unto salvation of those who sin.
To me the Bible is the dear and sacred home book which makes a
hallowed motherhood possible because it raises woman up, and with her
lifts toward heaven the world. This is the faith taught to me by those
whom I have most revered and cherished; it has produced the finest
characters which I have ever known; by it I propose to live; and
holding to the truth which it brings to us, I expect to pass from this
world to one even more full of beauty and of hope.
Believe me, honored co-worker for the enfranchisement of women,
Yours with sisterly regard,
Frances E. Willard.
Among the letters in reply to the interrogatories propounded are two,
noticeable because they are in such a striking contrast to that of Mrs.
Josephine K. Henry, which immediately precedes them. Their first marked
characteristic is their total lack of facts which are sufficient to
sustain the conclusions therein stated. Conceding for the purpose of
this discussion the truth of Mrs. Livermore's assertions contained in
the first paragraph of her letter, she fails absolutely to show that
the Holy Scriptures have been of any benefit, or have rendered any aid,
to woman in her efforts to obtain her rights in either the social, the
business, or the political world; and unless she is able to present
stronger or more cogent reasons to justify that conclusion than any
which are therein specified, I shall be compelled to adhere to my
present conviction, which is, that this book always has been, and is at
present, one of the greatest obstacles in the way of the emancipation
and the advancement of the sex.
In regard to the letter of the distinguished President of the Woman's
Christian Temperance Union, her position is entirely indefensible and
completely lacking in logical conclusions. Her leading proposition is
in substance that to the extent that the Christian religion has
prevailed there has been a corresponding improvement in the condition
of women; and the conclusion which she draws from that premise is that
this religion has been the cause of this advancement. Before I admit
the truth of this conclusion I must first inquire whether or not the
premise upon which it is based is true; and judging from the fact that
the condition of women is most degraded in those countries where Church
and State are in closest affiliation, as in Spain, in Italy, in Russia
and in Ireland, and most advanced in nations where the power of
ecclesiasticism is markedly on the wane, the inference is obvious that
the Bible and the religion based upon it have retarded rather than
promoted the progress of woman.
But, granting that her premise is true, her conclusion by no means
follows from it. She desires her reader to infer that the existence of
Christianity in certain countries is responsible for the high degree of
civilization which there obtains, and that the improved condition of
women in those countries is owing entirely to the influence of that
religion therein. This is what the logicians would call a non sequitur,
which means a conclusion which does not follow from the premises stated.
It is now a well-settled principle recognized by all writers upon the
science of logic, that the co-existence of two facts does not
necessarily imply that one is the cause of the other; and, as is often
the case, they may have no relation to each other, and each may exist
independently of the other. Many illustrations of this fallacy might be
presented were it necessary to do so; but I will refer to only one of
them. I have heard it asserted that more murders and other crimes are
committed in Christian countries than in any others. Whether this be
true or false, I am not prepared to state; but if it were proven to be
a fact, could one justly contend that the influence of the Bible is in
favor of the commission of crime? Indeed, there would be more reason
for so thinking than there is for the opinion which she holds, as
numerous passages may be found in that volume which clearly justify
both crime and vice.
The truth of the matter is, as Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Henry, and other
contributors to "The Woman's Bible" have clearly proven, that whatever
progress woman has made in any department of effort she has
accomplished independently of, and in opposition to, the so-called
inspired and infallible "Word of God," and that this book has been of
more injury to her than has any other which has ever been written in
the history of the world.
E. M.
"Have the teachings of the Bible advanced or retarded the emancipation
of women?"
"Have they dignified or degraded the Mothers of the Race?"
There are always two sides to every question. It sometimes happens
that the Christian, the historian, the clergyman, and the devotee, in
their enthusiasm, are long on assertion and short on proof. Turning the
light on the past and present, the writer of this comment asserts "as a
matter of fact that the nations which treat women with the most
consideration are all" civilized nations. If the condition of woman is
highest in Christian civilization, the question arises, Is it
Christianity or civilization which has accorded to women the "most
consideration"? Christianity means belief in the tenets laid down in a
book called the Bible, claimed to be the Word of God. Civilization
means the state of being refined in manners from the grossness of
savage life, and improved in arts and in learning. If civilization is
due entirely to the teachings of the Bible, then, as claimed, woman
owes to Christianity all the "consideration" which she receives.
We claim that woman's advancement is due to civilization, and that the
Bible has been a bar to her progress. It is true that "woman receives
most consideration in Christian nations;" but this is due to the mental
evolution of humanity, stimulated by climate and by soil, and the
intercommunication of ideas through modern invention. All the Christian
nations are in the north temperate zone, whose climate, and soil are
better adapted to the development of the race than any other portions
of the earth. Christianity took its rise in thirty degrees north
latitude. Mohammedanism took its rise in the torrid zone; and as
it made its way north it advanced in education, in art, in science, and
in invention, until the civilization of Moslem Spain far surpassed that
of Christian Europe, and as it retreated before the Christian sword
from the fertile valleys of Spain into the and plains of Arabia it
retrograded, after giving to the world some of the greatest scientific
truths and inventions.
The women of the United States receive "more consideration" and are
being emancipated more rapidly than are the women of Europe; yet, in
Europe, Christianity holds iron sway, while in America the people are
free to accept or to reject its teachings; and in the United States,
out of a population of seventy millions, but twenty-two millions have
accepted it; and a large percentage of these are children, who have not
arrived at the years of discretion, and foreigners from Christian
Europe. The consideration extended to woman does not depend upon the
teachings of the Bible, but upon the mental and material advancement of
the men of a nation. Now if it can be proven that Bible teaching has
inspired men to explore and to subdue new lands, to give to the world
inventions, to build ships, railroads and telegraphs, to open mines, to
construct foundries and factories, and to amass knowledge and wealth,
then the Bible has been woman's best friend; for she receives most
consideration where men have liberty of thought and of action, have
prospered materially, builded homes, and have bank accounts.
The women in the slums of Christian London and New York receive no
more consideration than the women in the slums of Hong Kong or Bombay.
If the nations which give the most consideration to women do so because
of their Christianity, then it logically follows that the more
intensely Christian a class or an individual may be, the greater
consideration will be shown to their women. The most intensely
Christian people in Christendom are negroes; yet it is an
incontrovertible fact that negro women receive less consideration, and
are more wronged and abused, than any class on the earth. The women of
the middle and upper classes in Bible lands receive consideration just
in proportion to the amount of intelligence and worldly goods possessed
by their male relatives, while the pauper classes are abused,
subjected, and degraded in proportion to the ignorance and the poverty
of the men of their class.
The Church is the channel through which Bible influence flows. Has the
Church ever issued an edict that woman must be equal with man before
the canon or the civil law, that her thoughts should be incorporated in
creed or code, that she should own her own body and property in
marriage, or have a legal claim to her children born in wedlock, which
Christianity claims is a "sacrament" and one of the "holy mysteries"?
Has the Church ever demanded that woman be educated beyond the Bible
(and that interpreted for her) and the cook book, or given a chance in
all the callings of life to earn an honest living? Is not the Church
to-day a masculine hierarchy, with a female constituency, which holds
woman in Bible lands in silence and in subjection?
No institution in modern civilization is so tyrannical and so unjust
to woman as is the Christian Church. It demands everything from her and
gives her nothing in return. The history of the Church does not contain
a single suggestion for the equality of woman with man. Yet it is
claimed that women owe their advancement to the Bible. It would be
quite as true to say that they owe their improved condition to the
almanac or to the vernal equinox. Under Bible influence woman has been
burned as a witch, sold in the shambles, reduced to a drudge and a
pauper, and silenced and subjected before her ecclesiastical and
marital law-givers. "She was first in the transgression, therefore keep
her in subjection." These words of Paul have filled our whole
civilization with a deadly virus, yet how strange is it that the
average Christian woman holds the name of Paul above all others, and is
oblivious to the fact that he has brought deeper shame, subjection,
servitude and sorrow to woman than has any other human being in history.
The nations under Bible influence are the only drunken nations on the
earth. The W. C. T. U. will certainly not claim that drunkenness
elevates woman; indeed, its great work for our sex is a splendid
protest against this idea. Throughout Christendom millions of wretched
women wait in suspense and in terror for the return of drunken
husbands, while in heathendom a drunkard's wife cannot be found unless
a heathen husband is being Christianized by Christian whiskey. The
Chinese women have their feet compressed, but, unlike Christian women,
they do not need their feet to give broom drills or skirt dances for
the "benefit of their church." The child-wives of India need to be
rescued and protected, but no more than many adult wives in Bible lands
need protection from drunken and brutal husbands. The heathen wife
seeks death on her husband's funeral pyre, but the Christian wife is
often sent to death by a bullet in her brain, or a knife in her heart.
It is said that "woman's ballot is unknown except where the Gospel of
Christ has mellowed the hearts of men until they became willing to do
women justice." justice through the ballot has been accorded only to
the women of Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and far away New Zealand.
In these States the people are honest, industrious and law-abiding; but
the "influence of the Gospel of Christ," according to religious
statistics, is so small it would take a search-warrant to find it,
while Utah is full of Mormons and New Zealand is a convict dumping
ground for Christian nations. Is this the extent of justice to women
after the "influence of the Gospel of Christ has mellowed the hearts of
men" for nineteen hundred years?
The fact is that woman has been elevated in spite of Bible influence.
Every effort that woman has made to secure education has been
challenged by popes, bishops, priests, moderators, conferences and
college presidents, yet against all these protests she has battered
down the doors of Christian colleges and is now studying the Bible of
Science in conjunction with the Bible of the Christian religion. With
increasing knowledge woman is founding her faith on reason and
demonstrated truth, instead of taking it second-hand from priest,
parson or presbyter.
Remove from Bible lands the busy brains and hands which have guided
the plow and the locomotive, driven the machinery of the mine, the
foundry, the factory, the home, the mental and the physical labor which
have brought material prosperity, broadened the mind, subdued the
brutal instincts, and humanized the race--remove all these and leave
but the Bible and its influence, and where, let me, ask, would woman be
to-day? Where, indeed, would man be? A crouching and cowering slave to
the Bible doctrine of the Divine right of kings, living as the brutes
of the field, as he did when Bible Christianity was at the zenith of
its power. Wherever in Christian lands man has been a slave, woman has
been the slave of a slave.
Imagine the condition of woman if to-day should be removed from
Christian civilization the school, the steam engine, the smokestack and
the printing press, and leave but the Scriptures, the steeple and the
parson. Would Elizabeth Cady Stantons, Mary A. Livermores and Frances
E. Willards be the products of this strictly Christian civilization?
Christianity has instilled into woman the canting falsehood that the
women of all other religions are degraded and immoral. Through tyranny
and falsehood alone is Christianity able to hold woman in subjection.
To tell her the truth would rend the temple of faith in twain and
strike terror to the heart of the priest at the altar. Nothing but the
truth will set woman free. She should know that Christian England
captures the Hindoo girl to act as a harlot to the British soldier, and
that a Christian chaplain is commanded to see that she performs her
duty. She should know that in Christian Austria the maiden must partake
of the Holy Eucharist before she will be granted a license as a
prostitute. She should know that Christian Europe and America trade
upon the bodies, the hearts and the hopes of millions of wretched
women, victims of ignorance and of poverty, and that the centres, of
Christian civilization are seething cauldrons of immorality,
dissipation and disease, which spread ruin and despair in the shadow of
the loftiest cathedrals and palatial Christian temples.
These things are too shocking for pure Christian women to know, so
they expend their prayers and pelf on the "poor heathen" who have never
heard that Adam ate an apple, or that the whale swallowed Jonah.
Christianity feeds and fattens on the sentiment and the credulity of
women. It slanders the women of India, of China and of Japan that it
may rob the woman of Europe and of America. Dr. Simmons, of the
National Hospital at Yokohama, who has lived in the Orient for thirty-
five years, says:
"The family in Japan is the cornerstone of the nation. The father and
the mother are regarded with reverence. Politeness and self-restraint
are instilled into children, and an uncivil word is rarely heard. The
Japanese are truthful and honest. The wife has equal influence with the
husband; while divorce is rarely heard of in Oriental lands; and laws
are more stringent protecting the chastity of women."
O that women could learn the truth! The laws of the Orient are against
trafficking in young girls, but Christian England, which has an iron
hand on the throat of India and a sword thrust into her heart, carries
on a lively trade in native and foreign women, to be the prey of the
Christian soldier, who makes way for the Christian missionary. Here, in
Christian America, marriageable young women are trotted off to church,
the theatre or the ball, and practically set up for sale in the market
of holy matrimony; and the Christian minister, for a consideration,
seals the "Divine mystery." The Church would indignantly deny that it
is a marriage mart, but denial does not throttle the truth.
Truth makes her way slowly but surely, because the eternities are
hers. Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the greatest liberator of our time,
has, with magnificent courage, pressed into humanity's Thermopylae, and
turned the light on the superstitions which have visited cruelties and
wrongs on woman, and this, too, under a system which claims to extend
"great consideration" to the Mothers of the Race. O women of
Christendom! will ye not seek the truth? Leave the priestly mendicants
who demand your devotion and your dollars, leave to their religion the
heathen women on the banks of the Yangtse-Kiang and the Ganges, and
turn your eyes to millions of your enslaved, toiling, struggling
sisters in Christendom whom it is claimed the Bible has elevated; and
remember that these are the victims upon whom the "glad feet" of the
Gospel have been trampling for two thousand years.
Versailles, Ky.
Josephine K. Henry.
The Christian theory of the sacredness of the Bible has been at the
cost of the world's civilization. Whether we regard the work as
custodian of the profoundest secrets of the "ancient mysteries," a
spiritual book trebly veiled, or as the physical and religious history
of the world in its most material forms, its interpretation by the
Church, by the State, and by society has ever been prejudicial to the
best interests of humanity. Science, art, inventions, reforms of
existing wrongs, all, all have been opposed upon its authority. That
even the most enlightened nations are not yet out of barbarism is due
to the teachings of the Bible.
From "Thou shalt not make any graven image, or any likeness of
anything in heaven above, the earth beneath, or the waters under the
earth," down to "A woman shall not speak in church, but shall ask her
husband at home," the tendency of the Bible has been to crush out
aspiration, to deaden human faculties, and to humiliate mankind. From
Adam's plaint, "The woman gave me and I did eat," down to Christ's
"Woman, what have I to do with thee?" the tendency of the Bible has
been degradation of the divinest half of humanity--woman. Even the
Christian Church itself is not based upon Christ as a savior, but upon
its own teachings that woman brought sin into the world, a theory in
direct contradiction, not alone to the mysteries, but to spiritual
truth. But our present quest is not what the mystic or the spiritual
character of the Bible may be; we are investigating its influence upon
woman under Judaism and Christianity, and pronounce it evil.
Matilda Joslyn Gage.
There is nothing tending to show that the women spoken of in the Bible
were superior to the ones we know. There are to-day millions of women
making coats for their sons; hundreds of thousands of women, true, not
simply to innocent people falsely accused, but to criminals. Many a
loving heart is as true to the gallows as Mary was to the cross. There
are hundreds of thousands of women accepting poverty and want and
dishonor for the love they bear unworthy men; hundreds and thousands--
hundreds and thousands--working day and night, with strained eyes and
tired hands, for husbands and children--clothed in rags, housed in huts
and hovels, hoping day after day for the Angel of Death. There are
thousands of women in Christian England working in iron, laboring in
the fields and toiling in the mines. There are hundreds and thousands
in Europe, everywhere, doing the work of men--deformed by toil, and who
would become simply wild and ferocious beasts, except for the love they
bear for home and child.
We need not go back four thousand years for heroines. The world is
filled with them to-day. They do not belong to any nation, nor any
religion, nor exclusively to any race. Wherever woman is found, they
are found. There are no women portrayed in the Bible who equal
thousands and thousands of known to-day. The women of the Bible fall
almost infinitely below, not simply those in real life, but the
creations of the imagination found in the world of fiction. They will
not compare with the women born of Shakespeare's brain. You will find
none like Isabella, in whose spotless life, love and reason blended
into perfect truth; nor Juliet, within whose heart, passion and purity
met like white and red within the bosom of a rose; nor Cordelia, who
chose to suffer loss rather than show her wealth of love with those who
gilded dross with golden words in hope of gain; nor Miranda, who told
her love as freely as a flower gives its blossom to the kisses of the
sun; nor Imogene, who asked, "What is it to be false?" nor Hermione,
who bore with perfect faith and hope the cross of shame, and who at
last forgave with all her heart; nor Desdemona, her innocence so
perfect and her love so pure that she was incapable of suspecting that
another could suspect, and sought with dying words to hide her lover's
crime.
If we wish to find what the Bible thinks of woman, all that is
necessary to do is to read it. We shall find that everywhere she is
spoken of simply as property--as belonging absolutely to the man. We
shall find that, whenever a man got tired of his wife, all he had to do
was to give her a writing of divorcement, and that then the mother of
his children became a houseless and homeless wanderer. We shall find
that men were allowed to have as many wives as they could get, either
by courtship, purchase, or conquest. The Jewish
people in the olden time were, in many respects, like their barbarian
neighbors.
Anon.
The Bible, viewed by men as the infallible "Word of God," and
translated and explained for ages by men only, tends to the subjection
and degradation of woman. Historical facts to prove this are abundant.
In the dark days of "witchcraft"--through centuries--alleged witches
were arrested, tried in ecclesiastical courts, tortured and hung or
burned at the stake by men under priestly direction, and the great
majority of the victims were women. Eve's alleged transgression, and
the Bible edict in the days of the reputed Witch of Endor, "Thou shalt
not suffer a witch to live," being the warrant and Divine authority for
this awful slaughter of women.
In the days of chattel-slavery in our country, the slave-laws, framed
by men only, degraded woman by making her the defenseless victim of her
slave-master's passions, and then inflicting a cruel stab, reaching the
heart of motherhood, by laws which made her children follow the
condition of the mother, as slaves; never that of the father, as free
women or men. The clergy became slaveholders and defenders of slavery
without loss of priestly position or influence, and quoted "Cursed be
Canaan" as their justification.
The Lord gave the Word, great was the company of those that published
it.--Old version of the Bible, 68th Psalm.
The Lord giveth the Word, and great is the multitude of women who
publish it.--Revised version of the Bible, 68th Psalm.
Here is "a reform" not "against Nature," nor the facts of history, but
is true to the Mother of the Race, to her knowledge of "the Word," to
her desire to promulgate it, to her actual participation in declaring
and proclaiming it. And true to a present and continuous inspiration
and influx of the Spirit, it is giveth, and not "gave," in the past.
And this one recognition of woman as preacher and Apostle forbids the
assertion that woman is degraded from Genesis to Revelation.
The light of a more generous religious thought, a growth out of the
old beliefs, impelled the learned "Committee on Revision" to speak the
truth in regard to the religious character and work of women, and they
have exalted her where before she was "degraded."
This revision is also prophetic of this era, for never were women
doing so excellently the world's work, or, like Tryphena and Tryphosa,
prophesying the light still to come.
Catharine A. F. Stebbins.
The general principles of righteousness and justice laid down in the
Bible have elevated the race in general, the mothers included, and have
aided in securing reforms for women, as well as for other classes. But
the specific texts of Saint Paul enjoining subjection upon women have
undoubtedly been a hindrance.
Alice Stone Blackwell.
1. In my opinion the teachings of the Bible have advanced woman's
emancipation.
Look at the freedom of the Jewish women of the Old Testament--of
Miriam, Deborah, Abigail, Ruth and Esther. In comparison, where were
the Gentile women who knew not God?
2. The teachings of the Bible, particularly the New Testament, have
dignified the Mothers of the Race. Christ was very severe to the men
who were sinners, he called them Scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites,
and pronounced, "Woe be unto you." He even whipped the money changers
out of the temple. But no rebuke to woman ever fell from his lips save
the gentle one to Martha, that she cared too much for her home and her
nice housekeeping. Christ's mission meant the elevation of womanhood.
Compare Christian countries with the heathen countries, and see how
Christianity elevates and heathenism degrades womanhood.
I have studied the questions in the Indian Territory in our own United
States. Under the influence of the Christian missionaries the
Indian woman is an important factor in Church and State. Where the
Gospel of Christ is not preached the women are slaves to the men. In
their long tramps they do not even walk beside their husbands, but
follow behind like dogs. I am aware that small ministers still preach
foolishness, defining "woman's sphere," but the real Biblical
Christianity elevates womanhood.
Sarah M. Perkins.
My Dear Mrs. Stanton:--I regard the Bible as I do the other so-called
sacred books of the world. They were all produced in savage times, and,
of course, contain many things that shock our sense of justice. In the
days of darkness women were regarded and treated as slaves. They were
allowed no voice in public affairs. Neither man nor woman were
civilized, and the gods were like their worshipers. It gives me
pleasure to know that women are beginning to think and are becoming
dissatisfied with the religion of barbarians.
I congratulate you on what you have already accomplished and for the
work you are now doing. Sincerely yours,
Eva A. Ingersoll.
In reading some of these letters and comments I have been deeply
impressed with the difficulty of substituting reason for superstition
in minds once perverted by a false faith. Women have been taught by
their religious guardians that the Bible, unlike all other books, was
written under the special inspiration of the Great Ruling Intelligence
of the Universe. Not conversant with works on science and higher
criticism, which point out its fabulous pretensions, they cling to it
with an unreasoning tenacity, like a savage to his fetich. Though it is
full of contradictions, absurdities and impossibilities, and bears the
strongest evidence in every line of its human origin, and in moral
sentiment is below many of the best books of our own day,
they blindly worship it as the Word of God.
When you point out what in plain English it tells us God did say to
his people in regard to woman, and there is no escape from its
degrading teaching as to her position, then they shelter themselves
under false translations, interpretations and symbolic meanings. It
does not occur to them that men learned in the languages have revised
the book many times, but made no change in woman's position. Though
familiar with "the designs of God," trained in Biblical research and
higher criticism, interpreters of signs and symbols and Egyptian
hieroglyphics, learned astronomers and astrologers, yet they cannot
twist out of the Old or New Testaments a message of justice, liberty or
equality from God to the women of the nineteenth century!
The real difficulty in woman's case is that the whole foundation of
the Christian religion rests on her temptation and man's fall, hence
the necessity of a Redeemer and a plan of salvation. As the chief cause
of this dire calamity, woman's degradation and subordination were made
a necessity. If, however, we accept the Darwinian theory, that the race
has been a gradual growth from the lower to a higher form of life, and
that the story of the fall is a myth, we can exonerate the snake,
emancipate the woman, and reconstruct a more rational religion for the
nineteenth century, and thus escape all the perplexities of the Jewish
mythology as of no more importance than those of the Greek, Persian and
Egyptian.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
"THE WOMAN'S BIBLE" REPUDIATED.
At the twenty-eighth annual convention of the National-American Woman
Suffrage Association, held in Washington, D. C., in January, 1896, the
following, was reported by the Committee on Resolutions:
"That this Association is non-sectarian, being composed of persons of
all shades of religious opinion, and that it has no official connection
with the so-called 'Woman's Bible,' or any theological publication."
Charlotte Perkins Stetson moved to amend by striking out everything
after the word "opinion."
Anna R. Simmons moved, as an amendment to the amendment, to omit the
words "the so-called Woman's Bible, or."
This was followed by a long and animated discussion, in which the
following persons participated:
Frances A. Williamson, Helen Morris Lewis, Annie L. Diggs, Carrie
Chapman Catt, Rachel Foster Avery, Henry B. Blackwell, Laura M. Johns,
Elizabeth U. Yates, Katie R. Addison, Alice Stone Blackwell and Rev.
Anna Howard Shaw, speaking for the resolution; and Charlotte Perkins
Stetson, Mary Bentley Thomas, J. B. Merwin, Clara B. Colby, Harriette
A. Keyser, Lavina A. Hatch, Lillie Devereux Blake, Caroline Hallowell
Miller, Victoria Conkling Whitney, Althea B. Stryker, and Cornelia H.
Cary speaking against it.
The President, Susan B. Anthony, left the chair and spoke with much
earnestness against the adoption of the resolution as follows:
"The one distinct feature of our Association has been the right of
individual opinion for every member. We have been beset at every step
with the cry that somebody was injuring the cause by the
expression of some sentiments that differed with those held by the
majority of mankind. The religious persecution of the ages has been
done under what was claimed to be the command of God. I distrust those
people who know so well what God wants them to do to their fellows,
because it always coincides with their own desires. All the way along
the history of our movement there has been this same contest on account
of religious theories. Forty years ago one of our noblest men said to
me: 'You would better never hold another convention than let Ernestine
L. Rose stand on your platform,' because that talented and eloquent
Polish woman, who ever stood for justice and freedom, did not believe
in the plenary inspiration of the Bible. Did we banish Mrs. Rose? No,
indeed! Every new generation of converts threshes over the same old
straw. Twenty-five years ago a prominent woman, who stood on our
platform for the first time, wanted us to pass a resolution that we
were not free lovers; and I was not more shocked than I am to-day at
this attempt. The question is whether you will sit in judgment on one
who has questioned the Divine inspiration of certain passages in the
Bible derogatory to women. If she had written approvingly of these
passages, you would not have brought in this resolution because you
thought the cause might be injured among the liberals in religion. In
other words, if she had written your views, you would not have
considered a resolution necessary. To pass this one is to set back the
hands on the dial of reform. It is the reviving of the old time
censorship, which I hoped we had outgrown.
"What you should do is to say to outsiders that a Christian has
neither more nor less rights in our Association than an atheist. When
our platform becomes too narrow for people of all creeds and of no
creeds, I myself shall not stand upon it. Many things have been said
and done by our orthodox friends that I have felt to be extremely
harmful to our cause; but I should no more consent to a resolution
denouncing them than I shall consent to this. Who is to draw the line?
Who can tell now whether Mrs. Stanton's commentaries may not prove a
great help to woman's emancipation from old superstitions that have
barred her way? Lucretia Mott at first thought Mrs. Stanton had
injured the cause of all woman's other rights by insisting upon the
demand for suffrage, but she had sense enough not to bring in a
resolution against it. In 1860, when Mrs. Stanton made a speech before
the New York Legislature in favor of a bill making drunkenness a cause
for divorce, there was a general cry among the friends that she had
killed the woman's cause. I shall be pained beyond expression if the
delegates here are so narrow and illiberal as to adopt this resolution.
You would better not begin resolving against individual action or you
will find no limit. This year it is Mrs. Stanton; next year it may be
me or one of yourselves who will be the victim.
"Are you going to cater to the whims and prejudices of people who have
no intelligent knowledge of what they condemn? If we do not inspire in
woman a broad and catholic spirit, they will fail, when enfranchised,
to constitute that power for better government which we have always
claimed for them. You would better educate ten women into the practice
of liberal principles than to organize ten thousand on a platform of
intolerance and bigotry. I pray you, vote for religious liberty,
without censorship or inquisition. This resolution, adopted, will be a
vote of censure upon a woman who is without a peer in intellectual and
statesmanlike ability; one who has stood for half a century the
acknowledged leader of progressive thought and demand in regard to all
matters pertaining to the absolute freedom of women."
The Resolution was then adopted by a vote of 53 to 41.
"The Truth shall make you free."--John viii., 32-
THE END.
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End of Project Gutenberg's The Woman's Bible, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton